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Guantanamo detainee is alleging he was brutalized. Suit to seek data about 6 Algerians

Boston Globe

April 13, 2005
By Charlie Savage

WASHINGTON -- A Guantanamo Bay detainee said a beating by guards at
the US military prison left his face partially paralyzed and one of his
fingers broken, according to a lawsuit to be filed today in federal
court in Boston.

The complaint will ask a judge to order the military to hand over
documents about its treatment of six Guantanamo detainees arrested in
Bosnia, including medical and psychiatric records. It is the first
Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed in connection with detention
challenges, marking a new tactic in piercing the veil of secrecy that
surrounds ''enemy combatants" at the prison.

''We've been asking for this information since September," said
attorney Stephen Oleskey, a former Massachusetts deputy attorney
general. ''It bears on their conditions of confinement and their mental
and physical well-being. The government has made no effort to give it
to us despite the fact that federal law requires it be promptly
provided, and thus we have no alternative but to go to court."

The complaint centers on Mustafa Ait Idir, an Algerian who was
arrested in Bosnia in October 2001. Idir was interviewed in February of
this year during a trip to Guantanamo by two Boston attorneys, Oleskey
and Rob Kirsch, who took on the case of six Algerians suspected of
conspiring to blow up the US embassy in Sarajevo. The United States
brought the six to Guantanamo after Bosnian courts dismissed charges
against them for lack of evidence.

According to a draft of the complaint obtained by the Globe, Idir
alleges he faced torture at Guantanamo: Guards once held his face under
water in his cell's hole-in-floor toilet and flooded his mouth with a
hose, making him feel like he was drowning. He was handcuffed at the
time, he said.

Another time, the complaint said, guards harassed prisoners on
religious grounds by forcing them to give up their pants so they could
not pray according to Muslim custom, which requires that worshipers be
fully covered. Idir refused to disrobe and struggled with guards, who
tear-gassed him. Eventually he was put in handcuffs, after which a
guard bent his finger until it broke.

On a third occasion, the complaint said, guards twisted his right
hand while he was handcuffed, dislocating the middle finger and thumb.
They also pinned him down on gravel and jumped on his head, causing
stones to cut the right side of his face and leaving a scar near his
eye.

''This incident precipitated an apparent stroke," the complaint
alleged. ''He experiences head pain, and the left side of his face was
paralyzed for months. Only one of his eyes blinked . . . He could not
eat normally, food and drink leaked from his non-functioning mouth."

A Defense Department spokesman declined to comment on specifics of
the case, but noted that Al Qaeda ''emphasizes the tactic of making
false abuse allegations" if captured.

''US policy condemns and prohibits torture," the spokesman said.
''US personnel are required to follow this policy and applicable law.
Credible allegations of illegal conduct by US personnel are taken
seriously and investigated."

According to Kirsch, Idir is a computer technician, family man, and
athlete who had been on both the Algerian and Bosnian national karate
teams.

''Even if you assume that [Idir's karate expertise] would justify
[guards] being cautious, in the two instances in which his fingers were
broken and dislocated, by the time that happened he was entirely
subdued and his hands were manacled," the lawyer said.

The cases of the six Algerians have attracted attention because the
men were detained far from the Afghanistan-Pakistan war zone, where the
vast majority of Guantanamo prisoners were captured.

Oleskey said his clients had been working for Middle East-based
charities in Bosnia for at least six years at the time of their arrest.
All are married and have children. Their ages range from late 30s to
early 40s.

Idir's case was cited in January by US District Judge Joyce Hens
Green, who ruled that the military had failed to give detainees a
proper chance to challenge their imprisonment.

From a transcript of a military hearing held for Idir, Green quoted
an exchange in which Idir denied that he planned to attack the embassy
or knew an Al Qaeda member. He asked to know the name of the alleged
terrorist so he could further defend himself. But the tribunal was
unable to provide it.

''I was hoping you had evidence you could give me," Idir said. ''If
I was in your place -- and I apologize in advance for these words --
but if a supervisor came to me and showed me accusations like these, I
would take these accusations and I would hit him in the face with them.
Sorry about that."

Everyone in the room laughed. Green was less amused: ''The laughter
reflected in the transcript is understandable, and this exchange might
have been truly humorous had the consequences of the detainee's 'enemy
combatant' status not been so terribly serious and had the detainee's
criticism not been so piercingly accurate," she wrote.

Another federal judge, Richard Leon, came to the opposite
conclusion, holding that the military did give detainees a fair chance
to prove their innocence. The matter is now before an appeals court.